Over and over again, we have been told that in any military conflict there is no choice but to take sides for one or the other party in the conflict: for democracy against dictatorship, for "the people" against "imperialism". This article proposes an in-depth analysis of the tensions between the different imperialist states in the Middle East and in doing demonstrates clearly that the workers can expect nothing, no improvement in their lot, from any of the regimes in place or from any of the so-called "revolutions" of the Arab spring.

If we were to identify a vice that is characteristic of each epoch of human history, it would certainly be the hypocrisy of the ruling class that would fit the bill in the case of capitalism. The great Mongol conqueror, Genghis Khan, amassed piles of skulls when he conquered towns that had not submitted to him. But he never claimed to do it for the good of their inhabitants. It took bourgeois capitalist democracy to teach us that war is "humanitarian" and that it is necessary to bomb civilian populations in order to bring… peace and freedom to these very populations.